"Nationalism and anti-EU mobilization in postsocialist Europe"

Abstract

In this paper anti-EU mobilization in post-socialist EU accession states is treated as a relevant phenomenon both on attitude and parliamentary level. It is argued that Euro-skepticism is not an isolated phenomenon but has to be interpreted as an issue in party competition which is rooted in social-cultural and socio-economic conflict. Two party families are bound to rely on the EU issue in their efforts to attract voters: nationalist and post-communist parties. Whereas nationalist forces tend to reject the whole idea of integration for ideological reasons, post-communist forces throw an eye on the redistributive effect of Brussels' structural funds and therfore are somewhat contradictiory as to the scope of EU rejection.